Sometimes dumb is the new smart

Very, very rarely and kids,I don't suggest you take that as a truth. But sometimes tricking my brain into being too dumb to figure out how many more words 7,358 is than 5,673 means I'll just have to write a round 2,000. Yes it would take me five seconds to figure it out (I'm opposed to using calculators for calculations like that) but that's not the point. I'm tricking my brain into thinking it would be easier to write a nice round 2,000.

In other news, I finished off Chapter 2, which randomly became about this girl I hadn't met yet (Becky) and a trip to a cafe based on one in my highschool town with freaking great Chai. So now we're on to Chapter 3, in which we make contact with another criminal! Who is currently totally based on Mozzie from White Collar. Just sayin'.

And after having gone back to writing, I clock in at 8,026 total. Epic win for me today. I could go for three thousand, I finally hit the zone, but then I would be so unhappy tomorrow. And so I gracefully call it quits for the night and return from whence I came...yesterday morning.

8026 / 110000 words. 7% done!

To-do list for the year

Finish a rough draft of On Your Mark
Finish the Nocturne
Finish the Quirk Pitch
Finish Gulfcoast Highway
Outline Get Set and Go.
Sell one short story
Sell one poem

This should be approximately 105-110,000 words for the year. If OYM is approximately 80-85,000, Nocturne should be 10-15,000 and the Quirk and Water Story should put me over the edge.

Which would be pretty impressive, since in previous years I have written - and then abandoned - no more than 20,000 or so tops. Fortunately the poem is more in the revising land than anything else.

Perhaps, if I'm doing really well, I can even let myself kind of do nanowrimo without it stressing me out too much. I don't have to do all 50,000, but even if I got 20-30,000 for November, that would happily finish off my year.

I mean, part of me wants to make ludicrous goals like finish OYM by the summer and then revise that in the fall and start GS in the fall while also putting in some serious time on my depressing little gay-in-the-south book and also why not get started on Magicians in London again, and meanwhile what about that zombie story I wanted to write and also the female noir story and what happened to my Rapunzel story, etc,etc. And you know what? It's nice to have all these options. But I'm going to take it slow and steady for now.

Speaking of which. I should see if I can bang out at least 500 words today. (Also write a memo for my work website.)

5078 / 110000 words. 5% done!

Getting back on the horse

So this weekend was R's birthday and I didn't write a penny. I mean spend a word. I mean, oh I give up. We were decadent in every way and did nothing that could conceivably be called work. (Well, he wrote Saturday afternoon with some AF people, but I spent that time frantically buying wrapping paper and Reeses Pieces and wrapping presents.)

So! Today I am starting myself off slow. I have some writing to do for work, so that's taken up a lot of my writing brain. (But how much do I love that I sometimes get to write things for work? Write things that Editors and Authors and fancy people and the whole world can see?) But I'm determined to get up to 5,000 words today on Ze Novelle. I've written 398 words today and I have 189 left to go. (So how many did I start with? And how many did I write today? And how many am I at now?)

In fact, wordcounttool is telling me that I'm clocking in at 170ish on this post right now, so really, if I hadn't stopped to write this? I'd have gotten there already. Such is the woe of procrastination.

Alright, 189 more words, then I get to put on makeup, look like a normal person and get to go see Alan Rickman talk. Then tomorrow? I get to go see Alan Rickman talk. Apparently R and M have very similar brains, as they both got me tickets to Alan Rickman events.

I love them.

ETA: 5,078. I can go to Alan Rickman heaven now!

Weekly writings! Chapter 1

Last night we went to Argo, like we do most Thursdays these days, and I got 1,000 words out. It felt like pulling teeth, but I was tired and cranky and pms-y and hadn't eaten enough. So I'm ok with that. But hey, 1,000! And one really important edit where Jamie now speaks much earlier on. Or, well, at least whimpers.

I was talking to Blake about it all - he has been great about reading and cheer-leading, but he wants to jump into edits much too soon. I just need to power on through. But he was talking about needing action sooner and really needing to start the book later in the story. Which makes sense and is something I knew I am going to have to do eventually, but man I hope I figure out something to do with those pages because some of that writing is fabulous.

Anyway, for now, Chapter 1 is done! Onwards and upwards, Horatio.